HEAVY snow hit Surrey during Sunday night and Monday morning, with 403 schools in the county being shut down amid chaos on roads, trains and buses.

As the South East saw its heaviest snowfall for 18 years, motorists and public transport users were being advised to only travel where necessary.

The Met Office said another band of heavy snow was set to arrive on Monday afternoon, with up to 20cm expected on higher ground in Surrey.

On a lighter note, a group of students from the University of Surrey stayed up on Sunday night and spent six hours creating an igloo in their front garden, while children took advantage of a day off school to boost Surrey's snowman population.

Send us your snow pictures and stories. E-mailsarichards@surreyad.co.ukor text your photos to 07894 096535 (you need to include the word 'surrey' in the text of your message).

Despite the deployment of gritting lorries and snow ploughs, many routes remained blocked. The main roads affected on Monday included:

The M25 anti-clockwise between junction 9 (Leatherhead) and junction 8 (Reigate), closed during the morning rush hour and also partially blocked clockwise. Queues were reported to have joined with other sections of traffic to create 32 miles of tailbacks all the way round the motorway to Watford.

Snow also closed one lane of the M25 anti-clockwise in the afternoon, between junction 8 and junction 7 (for the M23), while a broken down lorry caused a lane restriction between junctions 10 and 9, for Wisley and Leatherhead.

Diversions off the M25 caused severe delays on the A24 and A217.

In Caterham, the A22 was closed northbound between the Godstone junction and the Waspes Lodge roundabout.

The A245 was closed both ways at the Painshill junction in Byfleet.

The A31 Farnham Road was closed both ways between the Hog's Back junction and the A325 in Guildford.

Drivers on the A3 around Guildford also experienced hazardous driving conditions.

South West Trains was operating at a severely reduced capacity, with passengers again advised not to travel.

Some services were running between London Waterloo and Woking, and Portsmouth Harbour and Guildford, but a broken down train on the "up line" at Godalming affected the latter route on Monday afternoon.

First Great Western, First Capital Connect, Southeastern and Southern services were also hit by the weather.

More than 250 flights were cancelled at Heathrow Airport after the closure of both runways, while flights into and out of Gatwick were also subject to delay and cancellation.

Road salting

Hospitals in Surrey also saw services hit by the bad weather.

Frimley Park Hospital cancelled all Monday afternoon outpatient clinics, except for the fracture clinic at the main Frimley site.

All non-urgent elective surgery (non-urgent operations) and non-urgent outpatient appointments at Epsom Hospital were cancelled until midday on Tuesday. Patients will be contacted with a new date for their appointments.

At East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, all outpatient appointments for Monday and Tuesday were cancelled.

At Ashford and St Peter's hospitals, outpatient appointments and the majority of planned operations were due to go ahead on Tuesday.

All outpatient appointments were cancelled on Monday at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford.

In all cases, people were asked to only attend A&E when absolutely necessary.

Elsewhere, Monday's National Hunt meeting was abandoned at Lingfield Racecourse due to the snow and a frozen track.

And in Runnymede, household bin collections were abandoned, but the borough's 'meals-on-wheels' team pulled out all the stops to try to make as many of their 150 deliveries as possible.

Surrey County Council said: "The county council has advised all of Surrey's 403 county schools to be closed on Tuesday.

"We advise parents and pupils to contact their school if in any doubt."

Most libraries were shut on Monday, as were all adult learning centres.

The county council's 42 snow ploughs and gritters were deployed across Surrey, with 'A' roads being given priority.

Primary routes were salted three times on Sunday night, a spokeswoman said.

"Dangerous and impassable"

Meanwhile, the county council's executive member for transportation, David Munro, said: “We urge you not to take the risk of travelling unnecessarily in poor conditions.

“Your safety as well as that of your loved ones should be of the utmost importance at this time of year and we ask you not to jeopardise it.”

Surrey Police said everything possible was being done to maintain the effectiveness of the emergency services.

Chief Superintendent Rob Price said: "Police vehicles are obviously affected by the dangerous, and in some places impassable, road conditions.

“However, officers are endeavouring to reach urgent incidents and we are working with partners to ensure an effective emergency service continues to operate despite the severe weather conditions.

"To help us provide this service, people are urged to only call the police in an emergency, which is when life or property is at imminent danger.

“Callers with non-urgent inquiries are asked to delay their call until the adverse weather conditions have passed.

"Members of the public with scheduled appointments or call-backs today should also expect them to be cancelled, while resources are focused on dealing with emergency weather-related and other incidents."